The coal based energy producers ensure a balanced national energy system and the large load fluctuations cause them significant loses, recalls CE Oltenia, in a press release. The message was posted on the company’s website, two days after an associations of wind project developement companies asked the authorities to unblock the investments in the wind sector.
Financial losses from load variations
“It is obvious for anyone that the random operation of the renewable energies, which have priority in dispatching, endanger the safety of the entire national energy system, while the compulsory measure for the coal producers to ensure the equilibrium, comes with substantial increases in costs, caused by the frequent stops/starts and equipments faults, which increases the production costs per MWh and lower the market share of the coal based energy,” said the company representatives who exemplify: “CE Oltenia had load variations of up to 1.000 MW during the days with wind gusts.”
The message sent by the main coal based energy producer talks about investments of hundreds of millions of euros, investments which CE Oltenia has made in facilities “in order to limit the impact upon the environment within the limits set by the current legislation as well as for set the areas affected by mining operations back to the forest and agricultural cycle”.
“The safest option during extreme winter weather conditions”
The CE Oltenia message refers to the claims made in public space arguing that “wind energy is the cleanest and the safest option in extreme winter weather conditions, and beyond.” These claims “raise a question mark, given that the negative impact of „green energy” upon the host ecosystems and the health of the neighboring human settlements is well known”.
According to CE Oltenia, wind turbines cannot be “the safest option” due to their intermittent functioning, which makes the coal based units to be requested by the National Dispatch Center (DEN) “exactly for covering the imbalances created by the renewable sources”.
“In extreme weather conditions of winter or summer, the lack of coal would lead to the collapse of the National Power System. In such periods, all the attention is directed to CE Oltenia’s plants, which are beneficial to both the renewable energy producers and to the NGOs that are supporting persuasive campaigns against conventional energy, without realizing that there can be no similarity between the electricity production capacities mix iin countries with completely different geographies. Romania does not dispose (quantitatively) of the same renewable sources in order to support the entire energy system such as the Nordic countries, for example,” explains CE Oltenia.
Consideration for classic energy producers
CE Oltenia urges the authorities to pay attention to classical energy producers, in order to create the legislative provisions to ensure a better functioning, alike, for all energy producers. The company states that it could have provided more energy for Romania, in case that the legislative changes introduced over time would not have led to:
- blockage of the rehabilitation projects of some production capacities, due to decreased income and the lack of allocating non-refundable funds from the PNI, for the period 2013-2016, namely the return of 25% of the eligible costs incurred for improving the energy groups
- making the necessary coal stocks for the peak winter periods because of lack of work fronts, because of the lack of government decisions necessary for expropriations
- mandatory purchasing of green certificates for the energy consumed in their own activity of extraction and production of lignite, as well, although the legislation states that manufacturers are exempt from the payment of green certificates equivalent to the energy used in their own consumption (large energy consumers in Romania, except CE Oltenia, were exempt from the acquisition of a considerable amount of green certificates and CE Oltenia is the third largest energy consumer in Romania, after Alro Slatina and ArcelorMittal Galaţi).